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Keywords

care of the disabled, care of the elderly, decision making, development, health services, local government, local government services, management, social services

Abstract

This survey is part of the social and health services research in the Finnish Local Government 2004 research programme. The main themes were the administration, service provision and development policies of municipal services for the elderly and the disabled. The respondents were managers of service institutions for the elderly and the disabled in research municipalities. Social services for the elderly and the disabled were also studied in 2000 and 2002.

First, the respondents were asked some basic information about service provision in their unit/institution. Questions covered the number of clients and service performances in 1995, number of clients from other municipalities, queues for treatment, total costs of the service institution in 1995, number of staff in different tasks and the ownership base of the institution. Satisfaction with the service facilities was queried as well as how many clients the facilities could accommodate, how many clients the personnel was able to handle, and whether special needs clients had been taken into account in training personnel and in planning and maintaining the facilities.

The service provision for the elderly and the disabled was investigated with questions focusing on who were responsible for providing different services in the institution, whether services had been put out to tender, whether the respondents were satisfied with the functionality of the services, which bodies made the decisions concerning the use of purchased services and the provider of those services, and whether the service institution sold home services and services for the elderly and disabled to other service units or municipalities.

In relation to management and decision-making in the institution, the respondents were asked to estimate how much different bodies and people (e.g. state authorities, municipal council, clients of the instution) had influence on the operation of the institution and whether any surveys or interviews had been conducted to assess/improve services. Use and importance of performance measures were charted.

In the final section, the development policies regarding service provision were surveyed. The respondents were asked whether the services had changed after 1992 in terms of the number of clients, financial resources, provision of private services, cooperation between municipalities etc, how they would rate different aspects of the services (e.g. number of staff, location and accessiblity of the services), the importance of different areas in terms of resourcing, and on which areas the development of services should be focused in the following years.

Background variables included, among others, municipality, the respondent's gender, mother tongue, year of birth, job experience, level of education and positions of responsibility.